Super El Nino: is 2026 an ‘extremely destructive’ prelude? Next year might be worse

From massive typhoons and severe floods to scorching heat, China has been grappling with a barrage of extreme weather events this year. Behind this surge in volatility lies a brewing “super” El Nino, according to researchers.Scientists warn that we are only seeing the prelude, and with the current event already rivalling historic climate disasters, it signals a potentially perilous future for the nation and the globe.Jiang Hua, chief El Nino forecaster at the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre, warned that although the most severe impacts of such an event often occurred in the following year, this year’s “prelude” had already shown “extreme destructive power”.“The entire tropical Pacific is like a pot of boiling soup,” Jiang said in an interview with the Global Times on July 22. “In terms of intensity, this year’s El Nino could already rival the historically recognised super El Nino of 1997-98.”In March, Jiang and her team detected large amounts of unusually warm water beneath the surface in the tropical regions of the northern and southern Pacific and in the Indian Ocean.What is a ‘super’ El Nino?These warm-water anomalies could converge towards the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, accelerating the development of the event.